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Are Czechs Xenophobes? (Jsou Češi xenofobi?)

Today we came across an article in the Prague Daily Monitor (PDM) named “Half of Czechs say there are too many foreigners in ČR. ” The title immediately caught our attention. Today, there are almost 2 million Czechs living abroad. The largest numbers of Czechs live in the USA, the country of people from around of world that has for hundreds of years accepted people from many countries. On the other hand, the Czech Republic is still mostly composed of Czechs (about 94%), followed by Slovaks, Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Vietnamese, etc. The influx of immigrants for 2009 is estimated to be about 1 per 1000 people = 10,200 foreigners. During communism, there was a very minor foreign immigration to the Czech Republic. Did the recently growing numbers of immigrants create a resistance to other cultures?

The PDM article says that 57% of 1139 respondents believe that there are too many foreigners living in the Czech Republic. About 68% of Czechs think that the country should only accept some refugees, 19% of respondents don’t want to accept any refugees and only 7% of polled Czechs would admit all refugees from around the world. What does it say about our culture? Do you feel welcomed in your new home country? For those living in the Czech Republic, how would you respond to the poll described above?